Friday, March 30, 2012

Habermas (1929- ): ideology, action but lost on new media

Habermas,
building on the work of his teacher Adorno and Marx, critiqued capitalism and
was firmly in favour of equality and democracy. We see here a neutered from of
Marxism that looks for ideological causes of oppression in capitalism and a
philosophy of action to bring about change, albeit in the context of social
democracy. His influence on education has been considerable.

Ideology critique

A
dominant ideology imposes power over disempowered groups. The disempowered may,
or may not, be conscious of their position of weakness. Education must address
this by making it clear what ideological forces are at work, then a look at the
causes that give rise to these power structures. As a philosophy of change he
also recommends action

Action research

This
is a call for research by and within the educational system to counter
ideological, political pressure and reduce inequalities. It relies on a theory
of knowledge that owes much to Marx, namely the idea that all knowledge has a
‘social’ context or is socially constructed, so that all taught knowledge is
inherently ideological and never neutral. Such research involves technical,
practical and emancipatory goals. Technical includes control through the
scientific approach, practical the qualitative analysis of the social context
and emancipatory is to free people from the chains of their ideological
oppression.

What to do

Habermas
and his followers are not short on suggested action. The direct effect of the Habermas
theory is to change the curriculum towards inclusive activity that critiques
ideology through cultural studies, political discussion, citizenship, media
studies, humanities and subjects that reflect on the process of education
itself. In practice, teaching needs to accommodate discussion, problem solving,
collaboration, and community-related learning. Teachers need to become
political agents.

However,
while it is hard to defend teachers as political agents or the extremes of
socially constructed knowledge; curriculum policy, design and content are
certainly ideological, in the sense of being politicised. There is much to be
gained by listening to calls for inclusion, student participation and the
student voice in education. Education, for Habermas should not simply fill up
the recipients with the current canon but promote participation.

Technology

The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere is an analysis of ‘representational’ communications beyond the
control of the state starting in the 18th century with newspapers,
coffee shops and so on . Then the capitalist ‘public sphere’ where he contends
that mass, broadcast media destroyed this earlier dialogue-based culture, when
audiences became passive. To be frank he’s been overtaken by events and public
statements show he neither understands new media nor its consequences. This is
surprising, as it is mass new media that resturns us to active participation
and dialogue. This may also be true in education where ew can escape the
strictures of a culturally controlled canon.

Conclusion

Habermas
has had a huge influence on educational theorising. We see in this form of social
constructivism underlying, generalist claims about the social nature of all knowledge,
that now seem both dated and impractical. On top of this, the fight against
ideology suffers from appearing to be ideologically driven. Action research
could be criticised for allowing a soft and woolly approach to educational
research that has led to little or no change in the way Habermas and his
followers had hoped. But, above all, he is misinformed and misguided on the
role of technology.

Bibliography

Habermas
J. (1971) The Structural Transformation
of the Public Sphere,transl. ShapiroHeinemann.